Tangled
by Teobi
Summary: Gilligan wants to know why people fall out. The Skipper tries to explain. One-shot, PWP.


**Tangled**

"Skipper? Why do people fall out?"

The Skipper was used to Gilligan's random questions, but this was a new one. Or perhaps not quite new, but a variation on a theme. Well, several themes. Gilligan could never keep to just one.

"Why do people fall out?" he said, turning to his little buddy. "You mean, why do they argue?"

Gilligan was sitting cross legged on the sand trying to untangle a mess of fishing line that he'd somehow gotten all snarled up while carrying two fishing poles down to the lagoon.

"Yeah, Skipper. Why?"

The Skipper looked down at the innocent face upturned towards him, sunlight causing those guileless blue-green eyes to close slightly against its fearsome mid afternoon glare.

"Well," he began, digging into the recesses of his brain to find an explanation Gilligan would a) understand and b) be happy with. "For a number of reasons."

That was a good start. Or not.

"Like what?"

"Well, like..." the Skipper scratched his head under his cap. Why couldn't he think of anything right now?

"You'd think if two people liked each other they wouldn't fall out," Gilligan went on, picking at the spaghetti mess of nylon twine with his fingernails.

_You would think,_ thought the Skipper.

"Gilligan, it's not as easy as that," he said. "Usually it starts with something as simple as a difference of opinion. Say for instance...oh, I don't know. Say I told you your shirt was blue."

Gilligan looked down at his shirt. "But it isn't blue, it's red."

"Exactly. But if I insisted it was blue, and you insisted it was red, or even green, and we both believed we were right."

"Green?" said Gilligan. "It sure isn't green." He stared at his shirt again.

"No, it isn't green. But if I told you it was, and I was convinced, and I didn't back down."

"I'd think you were dumb," Gilligan muttered.

"Exactly! You'd think I was dumb, and then I'd think you were dumb!"

"For saying it's red, when it is?"

The Skipper smiled, circled his fingers in the air. "Exactly," he repeated.

"Why would you think I was dumb for telling the truth?" Gilligan was very puzzled, and it showed. He began nervously twisting the tangled fishing line.

"Because we would both think we were telling the truth, and neither of us would want to admit we were wrong."

"Skipper?" Gilligan asked, peering suspiciously at his friend. "Do you really think my shirt is blue?"

"No, of course not. I can clearly see it's red."

"Then you agree with me."

"In this instance, yes."

"So that's not a very good example of why people fall out."

The Skipper felt exasperation coming on. "Well, it's the best I could do right now!"

Gilligan went back to picking at the fishing line. It just seemed to be getting more and more knotted up and he frowned in concentration, shifting his weight to avoid cramping his legs.

"Mr. and Mrs. Howell love each other, don't they?" he said, momentarily. "But they're always falling out. Why do you think that is?"

The Skipper wiped his perspiring brow. It sure was hot, and Gilligan wasn't making it any cooler.

"Because Mr. Howell doesn't always agree with everything Mrs. Howell says," he replied, smiling.

"And Ginger and Mary Ann are always falling out over the laundry and other chores."

"That's right. And usually it's over nothing more than a difference of opinions."

"So, if opinions make people fall out, then opinions are bad."

"Gilligan, opinions aren't bad. Everyone needs opinions. It's just that, well, everyone has different opinions. And that's what causes arguments." The Skipper rubbed his chin. "Okay, little buddy, I hate to bring this up, but it's like when you say I'm fat. You think I'm fat, but I think I'm just...well, that I have large bones." He ignored Gilligan's muffled giggling. "And you keep saying I'm fat, even when you know it upsets me and makes me mad. And then sometimes I even think you do it on purpose, and that makes me more mad. And then when you keep doing it, that's when we fall out!"

Gilligan's eyes went wide. "We fall out? Skipper, we don't fall out! We're buddies!"

"Not when you call me fat, when I'm clearly not."

Gilligan cast his eyes over the Skipper's rotund frame. The Skipper fidgeted, knowing he was under scrutiny, and that there was nothing worse than being under Gilligan Scrutiny.

"Okay, maybe I'm not as skinny as _you _are," he muttered. "But then, nobody is as skinny as you are."

Gilligan lifted his gaze. He looked wounded. "I'm not _that_ skinny." He flexed a meagre bicep, causing the fabric of his sleeve to barely move. He plucked at his sleeve, poked at his arm.

"Gilligan, you're so skinny that the last time we had a storm we had to tie _you _down in case you blew away."

"Oh yeah? Well, you're so fat they had to use _you _to weigh the huts down!"

The Skipper glared daggers at Gilligan, who glared daggers back. "You're so skinny, it's hard to see you when you stand sideways!"

"Oh yeah? You're so fat, you don't _have_ a sideways!"

"You're so skinny, you could fit your whole body into one of my pants legs!"

"That's because you're so _fat!_"

"Gilligaaaannnn..." the Skipper went beetroot and took his cap off, waving it at the first mate, who was now staring at him with his lower lip jutting out. There was a momentary stand-off, then Gilligan suddenly brightened.

"Skipper? Are we falling out?"

"If you carry on the way you're going, Gilligan, then yes, we are most definitely, positively falling out."

"Really? That's great! 'Cause then you've answered my question about why people fall out."

The Skipper couldn't ever stay mad at Gilligan for too long. The boy was just too honest, too innocent in the ways of the world.

"Gilligan, it's a good thing we're such good friends. We don't stay fallen out for long," he sighed. "One of us usually ends up apologising." _And that person is usually me,_ he added silently to himself.

"Mom fell out with her best friend once," Gilligan said, changing tack. The fishing line was now in a huge pile in his lap, getting more and more knotted. "They didn't speak to each other for weeks. Mom was miserable over it. I kept asking why Aunt Lucinda never came around any more and she'd tell me Aunt Lucinda didn't exist, but I knew she did because we used to see her every Saturday in the grocery store. Mom would just act like she wasn't there."

"Oh?" the Skipper said, sitting down on the rock next to Gilligan. "And do you know what it was that made them fall out?"

"No," Gilligan shrugged. "And I never did find out. But one day I came home from school and Aunt Lucinda was in the kitchen and her and Mom were laughing just like nothing had ever happened."

"I guess they must have realised their argument was silly and decided to forget all about it," the Skipper grinned. "Like a lot of women who argue over silly little things." The irony of what he'd just said didn't escape him, but he didn't mention it.

"Yeah. It was good that they made up. But what they didn't know was that while they were fallen out, it made other people unhappy, too," Gilligan muttered. "Mom yelled at me once just because I hadn't tidied my room, and she never yelled at me over that before." He picked up the fishing line in both hands and pulled a face. "I think I've really messed this up, Skipper. I can't get it untangled. I don't even know how it got tangled in the first place."

"Here," the Skipper said, reaching out a big, meaty hand. "Let me have a try."

Gilligan thrust the mess at him. "Good luck," he muttered. Then he carried on with what he'd been saying. "Anyway, after Mom and Aunt Lucinda made up, Mom was back to being happy again and she said she was sorry for being mad and yelling. She said Aunt Lucinda had come around with a peace offering and that they had a friendship too good to throw away, and it was boring on a Saturday without my Mom to go around the store with. And my Mom agreed."

"It sounds to me as though your Mom and Aunt Lucinda were very wise people," the Skipper smiled, despite his annoyance at the fishing line which really was completely snarled now. "Some folks never get over their arguments. In fact, some arguments get so out of hand that some people carry them all the way to their graves."

Gilligan didn't look very happy about that.

"Their _graves?_" he said in hushed tones.

The Skipper nodded. "Some people don't ever forgive and forget."

"Never?"

"Never."

"But that's stupid! Isn't it, Skipper? That's stupid, right?"

"It is stupid Gilligan, but it happens. When people get so fixated on their own opinions that they don't ever admit they may have been wrong."

"But what if they're not wrong?"

"Gilligan," the Skipper sighed loudly, his hands buried in the heap of fishing line that was now hopelessly twined around and through his fingers. "Here's some news for you. No-one is ever 100% right, and no-one is ever 100% wrong. There's an old saying. _'There are three sides to every story. Yours, mine, and the truth.'_"

"Even over things like saying my shirt is red?"

The Skipper nodded wisely. "Even over that. Even though your shirt _is_ red, and we can both clearly see it."

"I guess you could say it was dark red and I could say it was light red, and then we could argue about that, and take it all the way to our graves," Gilligan grinned.

"We could, but then that _would_ be stupid."

"Very stupid," Gilligan nodded, sagely.

"Gilligan," the Skipper said, lifting the fishing wire in the air, "this line is well and truly scuppered. You got your pocketknife on you?"

"Sure, Skipper." Gilligan sat forward and pulled the pocketknife out of his back pocket.

"Cut it here, right at the middle. We'll try and salvage as much of it as possible. Sometimes knots just fall apart once you've gotten rid of the worst parts. No, Gilligan, that's my finger. Here, the knot's here."

Gilligan worked his knife through the knots and slowly the two of them managed to separate one line from the other. The lines were all kinked and creased and twisted, but it was better than no lines at all. On the sand sat the remnants of the knots that had stayed defiantly twisted to the end. Those would be thrown away, of no use to anyone.

"There!" said The Skipper. "I'm glad that's over. Now maybe we can get on with catching something for supper, or there'll be no end of complaining from Mr. Howell!"

"But no falling out, right?" Gilligan closed his knife and re-pocketed it.

"No, no falling out. Just his usual blustering and grumbling about having no tartare sauce or embossed napkins."

They stood up, grinning conspiratorially at each other.

"It's a good thing nobody here falls out too badly," Gilligan said. "Otherwise we'd really be in trouble."

"The important thing, Gilligan, is being big enough to admit when we're wrong, or even when we're not 100% right. Being big enough to apologise, at least for our own contribution, if not for anyone else's. Being big enough to accept that even if we apologise, the other person or people involved may not. Being big enough to accept defeat, and being big enough not to gloat over winning."

"And you sure are big enough, Skipper," Gilligan grinned, nudging the Skipper in the ribs.

The Skipper went red and immediately took off his hat. "Gilligaaaaaaannnnnnn!"

"Sorry, Skipper! I didn't mean it!" Gilligan laughed. He backed away, preparing for a cap slap, but instead the Skipper threw his arm around Gilligan's slim shoulders and squeezed hard.

"Not too big to give you a hug, little buddy!" he chuckled. "not too big to give you a hug!"


End file.
